Winery Owner

Local Gift Shop Owner

If your area has enough visitors to support it, you could open up a gift shop where you sell various goods that are handcrafted or unique to your area.

Tour Guide

You could also provide tour guide or informational services to visitors.

Laundry Service Provider

For those who want to provide essential services to local residents who don’t have access to some of the same amenities that are available in big cities, you could open up a laundromat or start a pick-up laundry service.

Gym Owner

Firewood Delivery Service Owner

For those who have access to a large supply of firewood, you could sell it to local customers and even provide delivery services.

Handyman

Rural homeowners might not always have access to as many home service professionals either. So you could become a professional handyman or provide more specialized services to homeowners in your area.

Restoration Business Owner

If your area has unique old buildings or artifacts, you could specialize in providing restoration services to renew those homes or items to their former glory.

Junkyard Operator

You could also collect scrap metal and other junk as part of a rural junkyard business.

Appraisal Service Operator

If you have the right expertise, you could even offer appraisal services to people with old or unique items.

Daycare Owner

People in rural communities are just as likely as others to need child care services from time to time. So you could provide in-home or onsite care to fill that need.

Elderly Care Provider

You could also provide in-home elderly care to those who want to remain in their own homes but just need help with some daily tasks.

Transportation Service Provider

Since rural areas aren’t usually full of taxis or public transit, you could fill a need by providing transportation to people in rural communities, especially for things like non-emergency medical appointments where patients are unable to drive.

Auto Repair Garage Owner

If you’re skilled with automotive repairs, you could start your own rural auto repair garage.

Rural Tech Expert

Rural communities often present some unique challenges when it comes to technology. So you could provide specialized tech support, including internet setup, smartphone repair and fixing connectivity issues.

Home Security Service Provider

You could also provide home security services that are specific to people in rural communities.

Rural Museum Owner

If your area has a unique history or any interesting attributes that people might be interested in learning about, you could open up a museum that’s specific to the rural community.

Annie Pilon is a Senior Staff Writer for Small Business Trends, covering entrepreneur profiles, interviews, feature stories, community news and in-depth, expert-based guides. When she’s not writing she can be found on her personal blog Wattlebird, and exploring all that her home state of Michigan has to offer.

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Many freelancers work entirely online so they can live anywhere they can get decent internet access. Some rural areas such as those in Oklahoma have DSL. It is more expensive than other places, but everything else is cheaper.

If you want to live on the land, look for a WISP (wireless internet service provider). These are often small businesses started by someone who wanted faster internet. They can beam high speed internet (3-12+ meg downloads) up to 15 miles from a tower. They use a combination of antennas on existing small town water towers and towers they erect themselves.

Consider planting a permaculture food forest full of fruit and nut trees, berries, and produce. Think of it was a cross between homesteading and planting your own Garden of Eden. Work online to raise money to build and pay off the land while you work toward being self-sufficient.

If you’re interested in permaculture, check out Permies.com and the Kickstarter they’re running. They already raised $53k to be able to live stream and record their next live design courses and event.

There is so much people could do to revive small towns. It wasn’t that many generations ago that people didn’t expect to be employees. They started their own businesses or had homesteads and took odd jobs or sold what they produced to make ends meet. We can do that again.

In north India, I have tried to skill rural youth in vision refraction and helped them opening optical stores. this is a successful model for generating self employment and providing vision care access to rural community, over 3500 youths are running their outlets with supply chain support from a leading corporate.
Looking for some innovative ideas which can be scale up in India for generating employment/ micro entrepreneurship opportunities

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